


Let Me Be (Alone)

by labocat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Marriage to Stop Eldritch Forces From Re-Entering The World, Marriage to prevent the Apocalypse, Ritual Public Sex As Part Of Marriage Ceremony, Wedding Altar Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-23 12:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: Peter's plan to stop the Extinction is nothing like Martin ever imagined.





	Let Me Be (Alone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacehopper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/gifts).



“We have to _what_?” Martin’s almost impressed with how level he’s able to keep his voice, as if Peter hadn’t just said something that he would have immediately called out as a joke if Peter’s sense of humor wasn’t more along the lines of banishing people and less along “gotcha” hidden camera shows.

“It’s quite simple, really: the Extinction is an entity that relies on destruction - destruction of everything, even pain, which is what separates it from Blackened Earth, and then rebirth from that into something entirely new, which separates it from Terminus. So we need to create something new before it does. Instead of balance, a way to unite to stand against it. Honestly I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner, but intermarriage betwen the powers tends to...not go so well, if you get my meaning. But in the end, or to avoid the end, as it were, the easiest way to thwart the Extinction for now and extend our window of time is to join forces.” This is perhaps the most Martin has heard Peter talk about concrete plans against this new power, and he just barely keeps from clenching his hands at his sides that it’s coming _now_ , like _this_.

“Isn’t marriage...you know...antithetical to your whole thing?” He shrugs, staring at the wall because it’s easier than looking at Peter right now. “Being tied to someone else seems pretty un-Lonely if you ask me.”

“Really, Martin, I expected you to know better.” Martin bites his tongue because he _does_ , he’s listened to the tapes, to the various Lukas statements, knows Peter had to come from _somewhere_. “Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean you’re _there_ , after all.”

And _oh_ , that hurts more than he was expecting. It’s a tactic he would have expected from Elias, pressing at his sore spots, but he supposes that there’s a reason that Elias had asked Peter to be his successor. 

The blood rushing in his ears drowns out Peter’s next words, but Martin can guess what they were well enough when his hearing comes back to, “-n’t involve anyone else.”

He’s imagining a Lonely-style marriage ceremony, perhaps with separate vows in an empty church, not facing each other, but then Peter says, “Just a few family members, of course.”

“Wait, your family?” He’s so used to asking questions he doesn’t expect to get answered to realize he’s now asking questions he doesn’t even want answers to. Suddenly the empty church he’s imagining contains Lukas members staring intently from pews. Watching. Or perhaps this place has just rubbed off on him too much and they’d all avert their eyes, present in every way but the one that counted.

“Really, Martin, it’s like you have no concept of what a ritual entails.”

“Well, if you’d _told_ me or answered any questions before this point, before it _got_ to this point, maybe I wouldn’t be so clueless!” Martin knows shouting won’t help, knows without looking that Peter’s got that bemused tilt to his head the way he always does when Martin doesn’t know what his oblique comments mean. He sighs, then asks the one question he really doesn’t want to ask. “Why does it have to be me?”

“Hmm. Well, aside from the fact that you are the person I’ve been working most closely on this - no small feat, if you must know— I’ve already told you why I cannot work with Elias on this, he’s just too closely bound to Beholding and has entirely his own plans — and I suspect you’d also prefer I picked you rather than any of your co-workers— it’s an admirable trait, if a bit misguided, thinking others are more important than you. But aside from all of that, you are,” Peter pauses, and in that pause Martin makes the mistake of looking up and at him, because Peter is also looking at him, but more than that, it feels like Peter is looking _at him_ instead of through him, seeing him more that he’s felt in a long, long time. He feels seen, which he’d thought he’d gotten used to after four years in the Institute. But it hadn’t felt like this, and Martin can feel himself holding his breath, waiting for Peter’s next words. 

“You are, without a doubt, the best assistant I’ve ever had, and I find myself loathe to let you drift back to Elias and the Ceaseless Watcher so easily.”

Martin’s breath rushes out of him all at once with a _whoosh_ , and with it, what feels like every ounce of courage he’s ever had. Stupidly, he can feel his eyes getting hot, which _really_ is just _stupid_ because did he really expect Peter to have feelings? To take this at all seriously? Isn’t he used to disappointment enough by now? 

There’s a crack in the plaster by the windowsill, doubtless where the damp and changing temperatures have conquered even what was built on Robert Smirke’s foundations, and Martin finds that if he focuses on it and traces it like a river on a map, lets himself drift as if in a current himself, this isn’t so hard after all. He can do this.

Peter’s still talking. “...also the small matter of the impact of being touched by multiple Powers.”

“What?”

To his surprise, Peter actually looks disappointed. “Martin.” His tone makes Martin automatically stand up straighter, as if he were in school, being scolded. “How long have you worked here by now?”

“But...I’m not...Jon…”

“The Archivist has been touched by several Powers at this point, true, but he’s a little too tied to Beholding at this point. And perhaps not quite human enough, but that remains to be seen. You, however. You are, or were, the most senior Archival Assistant — before I promoted you, that is — which means you came in contact with many other avatars. You have been infested by Filth, not noticed working alongside I Do Not Know You, been trapped by the Twisting Deceit, not to mention all the time you’ve spent under Beholding’s watchful gaze or research you’ve done into other events. There are very few people better suited than you for this.” Peter reaches out and touches Martin’s shoulder, an act that surprises both of them, if Martin’s any judge of Peter’s expression right now. 

Some days Martin really hates having a conscience. He hates knowing what’s at stake, hates _knowing_ as much as he does, how much of the world isn’t what it seems, and he supposes that resentment of how knowledge has changed his life is what kept him from being promoted in his time here. That, and that Elias was a dick. 

“Does your family really need to be there?” He hasn’t said anything nearing agreement yet, but knows Peter has taken his question for the resigned assent it is when the hand on his shoulder tightens.

“Of course!” Peter says, far too cheerfully for anything that has been said over the past ten minutes. “Haven’t you ever held a ritual before?”

~

Martin has never, in fact, held or participated in a ritual before. He’s heard about many of them, but that’s all been through tapes or planning, and even that planning was trying to disrupt one, not hold one, and especially not an experimental one wrapped up in the trappings of marriage but with far too few flower arrangements and far too many creepy Lukas relatives trying to tell him what to wear.

Though he supposes that last one might’ve been the same, ritual or not.

There’s a surprising amount of them, for a clan that Martin would have assumed before now was made up solely of arranged and political marriages, though most of them talk very little to each other and seem to circle in obscure, discrete orbits around him as if Martin was the center of the worst solar system ever. Which isn’t the worst analogy, though he’s pretty sure the Dark’s would have been more disastrous.

In the end, Peter has at least told him what both a marriage ceremony under the Lonely and the skeleton of this ritual looks like, so Martin selects just a plain robe to don, taking a moment to duck into the washroom and splash some cold water on his face before he is ushered to stand in front of the heavy double doors of the hall. 

Even before his father had left, Martin hadn’t been much of the type to imagine his own wedding or marriage, even less so as life went on and his dating track record got bleaker and bleaker. But in even his wildest dreams, he never would have come up with the maze of mirrors he walks into as the doors open. He knows that on the other side, if he just follows some of the paths splitting off from his in ever more mirrors, he would find the other Lukas family members. But there’s only one Lukas that matters right now, even though Martin can’t see him. He can only see himself, reflected back endlessly in innumerable variations of angles - each mirror has been cut and angled and positioned in such a way as to feel like the room is endless, but he is as well, the only person he can see for miles. 

_Twenty miles to the horizon,_ Martin thinks, a little wildly, the fact one Peter had told him when he’d dryly made the comment about being able to see forever when Peter talked about being on the _Tundra_ on a clear day. There was no using sarcasm around the man. 

And now Martin is about to be married to him. _To save the world_ , he thinks, desperately. It wouldn’t be so bad - the world would still be around, at least for a little longer, the apocalypse would be diverted; Peter has even stopped disappearing people, and if Martin lets himself believe that it is because he’d asked, that maybe he’ll be able to hold some sort of power in the marriage as well, he tucks that thought away deep in his chest. Especially as he steps out of the passage of mirrors into a different one where Peter is waiting. 

Peter is stood there in a robe of his own, and Martin recognizes the small smile on his face and takes it as a good sign for what is left to come. He steps up and stands there, resolutely _not_ jumping when another Lukas steps out, a large book in hand. Something in his chest swirls as he wonders if it’s a Leitner or would have _been_ a Leitner if he’d ever gotten his hands on it.

In the end, the ceremony itself is fairly short. Their hands are tied together, words are spoken about the exchange and mixing of resources and experiences, and Martin wonders if anything has been reworded for their purposes, or if all Lonely marriage ceremonies are this vague and impersonal.

The droning words of whom Martin assumes is a Lonely priest — deacon? sage? It’s far too late to ask Peter now — stops and before Martin registers what is happening, the ribbon around their wrists is cut. He knows this is supposed to symbolize that they’re now one or some rot, but all he can think is what comes next. 

His spiral of thought is stopped by the heavy weight of Peter’s hands on his shoulders, turning Martin to face him. They’re not so different in height, but where Martin has a lifetime of hunching in on himself, Peter stands tall, his shoulders broad and square and he feels impossibly tall as he pulls Martin into him.

“I’ll take care of you.” It’s the first even semi-comforting thing he’s ever said, and strangely, Martin believes him. He may be Lonely, Martin now as well, but they can’t do this alone. “Trust me,” Peter says, and Martin closes his eyes and leans in. His scalp and spine tingle as their lips meet and he wonders if it is just his imagination, the fact that he hasn’t kissed many people, or if there really was something to Peter’s theory. The world starts to fall away and he lets it, letting himself sink into the feeling that spangled through his chest at Peter’s words. It’s better than thinking of anything else, especially as the kiss ends. Martin lets himself float, anchored by Peter’s hands still on his shoulders, lets himself be steered to the altar the priest had been standing in front of. He lets the robe be opened and pushed to fall from his body as he climbs up on the altar, shivering slightly in the cool air and against the cold stone. But, oddly, Peter’s hands are there, rubbing something like warmth into his limbs. Though perhaps he is just arranging Martin it still does the job of setting Martin at ease and Martin will take what he can at this juncture. He’s used to looking on the bright side of his relationships — it only follows that his marriage would be much of the same.

“Comfortable?” Peter asks, and Martin pulls a face, but doesn’t move, simply allows his arms and legs be arranged. It could be worse: his arms are by his side still and his legs are in a mostly natural position, but the unyielding stone of the altar keeps it from being any sort of close to comfortable. He nods nonetheless, locking eyes with Peter wordlessly telling him to get on with the next stage of this. 

_”There’s no greater force of unity than sex.”_ Martin hears Peter’s words in his head, and braces himself as he remembers what else he’d said. The blindfold is brought out and presented and, in short order, wrapped around Martin’s eyes. It’s dark and soft at least, but that darkness is close to absolute — there’s only a haze of light at the edges, not nearly enough for Martin to be able to tell what Peter is doing. Which is the point, he knows. He’s not supposed to feel connected to this. Even so, he jumps at the first touch on his leg. 

The touch firms up to be a hand wrapped entirely around his ankle, and Martin feels strangely anchored. He relaxes, and without a word from Peter, without even the “hmm”s he’s gotten used to, Peter’s hand continues, skimming upwards.

It’s different than anything he’d imagined, lying here like this. He’d known his vision would be cut, that it would heighten every touch, but nothing prepared him for this, for the way that the slightest brush of Peter’s hand makes his skin tingle, that the wake of the hairs on his leg resettling washes over him in a surge of sensation, and Peter hasn’t even made it past his knee yet. 

Perhaps there was something after all about the marriage ceremony and their joining together, because almost as soon as Peter’s hand leaves his ankle, Martin is anticipating its jump to his other leg, as high as his thigh this time. It’s a strange mix: of unexpected caresses and either Peter reading his desires of where he needs to be touched or his reading Peter’s intentions with absolutely no input. It leaves him on edge, each nerve alight, but it also chases away all of his previous nervousness, allowing no room for anything but focusing on this.

He’d questioned why this part of the ceremony had to be done still in the hall, on the altar, rather than at least on a bed, or anywhere else in the Lukas family home, but being here now, he feels the weight of the hall settle around him, the echoes of the ritual settling around them. There’s a weight to it that gives every movement of Peter’s hand importance, even though in any other circumstance Martin would be snarking at him to get on with it, to stop teasing, to do _something_ with his hand other than just leave it there. 

Then, all of a sudden, both of his hands leave, leaving Martin bereft. It’s what Martin had secretly wanted before: to be left alone, for this all to end, for all of this to have been a joke, but everything still feels off and the moment he lets himself think about it, it clicks. This all has to be out of some Lonely playbook of how to orchestrate rituals or interactions in general. Martin lets himself think about whether or not all family reunions for the Lukases are this weird or if he’s just special; he has to believe that they are and that he is, because the alternate is freaking out about being left alone on an altar in a mansion in the outskirts of the suburbs, absolutely none of which is ideal.

But then, before he can let his mind run away with the fear, Peter’s hand is back. Bending his leg up this time, and though Martin knows what this is a prelude to, relief overwhelms him, that Peter is still there, that he’s not alone, that all of his has a purpose, that _he_ has a purpose. 

Martin knows he’s been biting his lip, not from any sort of pain or recognition, but by the comment Peter makes. “Your lips are awfully red, Martin. Are you sure the attendants didn’t put any lipstick on you?” 

It breaks the tension, and the care of it surprises Martin, both the comment and the thought behind it making him shudder, head to toe, and in doing so, arch into Peter’s touch. His hands are less calloused than he would have expected from a ship captain, but they hold him in place with surprising strength. 

“Keep them there,” Peter murmurs as he bends Martin’s legs up around his chest, and even if Martin didn’t know that it would be an easier position for him, he would have stayed from the way Peter had pressed his legs into position, shifting them just so with a firm hand.

He’s hard now, something he would never have expected at the start of all of this, but he supposes that men who ignore him, who ignore the world at large have always been his weakness, and the moment they pay him any care or attention, his downfall. So he keeps his legs where they are and shifts into instead of away from Peter’s fingers as they trace around his hole, slick with the lubricant he’d reached back to get.

From the gallery of the hall there comes a faint chanting, even though Martin is sure that if he were among them, he’d have no idea what stage the ritual was at; he barely knows himself. He knows Lonely doesn’t have any sort of prescience — Peter’s complained enough about having to look things up, but he can’t shake the feeling that every one of Peter’s relatives knows what is happening on this altar now, mirror maze or not. 

“Join with me, lend your power to mine,” Peter is saying as his finger circles around Martin’s rim, as if Martin is able to think about or respond to anything than sensation at this point.

He wants so badly to curse, to say something blasphemous, but knows that somehow the weight of saving the world has fallen on his shoulders, that improbable as it all is, it comes down to him and that fires up something in his chest. He arches, taking back some semblance of control in the ritual as Peter’s fingers breach him, searching for his own pleasure and place in all of this. Then too soon there’s a blunt pressure against him and he’s fighting for control again. Peter’s thrusting into him, but Martin is also giving back as good as he’s got, arching and writhing, without leaving the shape he’s been twisted into. It’s easier than he thought, and even as Peter’s hand wraps around him, bringing him closer to the edge, he can feel along the edge of his senses each Power he’s supposedly touched by - the strangers around him even as they watch him, only his mind telling him that the touch upon his _is_ Peter, the oddness of the whole situation, the altar beneath him tilting in his blind perception, sending his thoughts scattering just as his skin starts crawling, but then there’s only Peter’s voice.

“Shhh. Focus on me, Martin. There is only me.”

He does, and everything coalesces: Peter’s hands across his skin, Peter within him, Peter in each person present, Peter holding him in place, and even as he acknowledges this and draws it into himself, Martin shatters, orgasm overtaking him. He cries out, the sound echoing oddly in the hall as if it were a tunnel or an office instead, the world coming back to him in pieces. 

He comes to in Peter’s arms and that in itself in odd; he would have expected Peter to pull away as soon as the ritual was done, but he’s here, pulling Martin upright and slowly undoing the knot of the blindfold. With the lingering whisper of Peter’s fingers across the crest of his cheeks, Martin opens his eyes slowly, taking everything in. The altar appears unchanged, as do he and Peter, at least to his eyes, but somewhere in his gut his senses flare. The creepy eaves of the hall feel less haunted, or at least the same level of haunted as the corridors of the Archives. He leans back into Peter’s hand supporting him instead of thinking too much about what that might mean.

“Is that it?” He tries to keep from shuddering, from breathing too hard or seeming affected, the same way that Peter looks like he’s done no more than check his email, though some days that is no small task.

“One would hope. It’s certainly more ritual than most of us have attempted or want to attempt without further good reason.”

“I’m glad to know the end of the world as we all know it counts as a ‘good reason’ for their purposes,” Martin quips, swinging his legs over the side of the altar and regretting it instantly as his vision swims. Peter’s hand is there in a moment against his back, and Martin tries not to lean into it more than he absolutely has to. Which involves a lot more leaning than he wants to admit.

“They don’t gather for much. You’ve done us all a great service tonight, Martin.” Peter picks up Martin’s hand and Martin tries not to blush as Peter kisses it, the pressure of his lips light even as his eyes are intent on Martin’s.

“Uh-huh. Though, is this done?” Without breaking eye contact, Martin stands, wincing only slightly as the robe falls back into place around him. Around both of them, Lukases of various stations are moving, putting things back into what he assumes are their normal places.

“Are we ever done? I think you will find not, though perhaps we’ve bought ourselves some time against the Coming Change yet. Though realistically, this is new to me as well, but I have hopes that we will make it work.”

Martin watches, watches Peter’s eyes watch him, feels his arm at his waist, feels the power settle around his shoulders and knows he has more research left to do. A lot more research. “I think we will be ready,” he says, half his mind on rituals and apocalypses and life-changing events and the other half on the realization that there’s no going back now. He’s taken a step tonight and can only hope it’s the right one, but now he has one more power at his disposal, more than he ever expected or wanted, and with it he will do all he can to keep everyone alive for that much longer. Nothing in his life has been certain up to this point; he doesn’t think it’s about to stop being a series of leaps of faith and hoping for the best any time soon, but with that thought still lingering, he steps down off the dais, Peter’s arm still around him.


End file.
